The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade~GATT! and the World Trade Organization~WTO! have been touted as premier examples of international institutions, but few studies have offered empirical proof+ This article comprehensively evaluates the effects of the GATT0WTO and other trade agreements since World War II+ Our analysis is organized around two factors: institutional standing and institutional embeddedness+ We show that many countries had rights and obligations, or institutional standing, in the GATT0WTO even though they were not formal members of the agreement+ We also expand the analysis to include a range of other commercial agreements that were embedded with the GATT0WTO+ Using data on dyadic trade since 1946, we demonstrate that the GATT0WTO substantially increased trade for countries with institutional standing, and that other embedded agreements had similarly positive effects+ Moreover, our evidence suggests that international trade agreements have complemented, rather than undercut, each other+ When and how do international institutions promote cooperation? Few questions are as fundamental to international relations or as salient for world leaders+ Due to the contributions of Keohane and others, we now have sophisticated theories about the emergence and effects of international institutions, but empirical research has not proceeded apace+ 1 As Frieden and Martin point out, "theoretical work on interAn earlier version of this article was presented at the
In many issue-areas, the world is witnessing a move to law. As the century turned, governments and individuals faced the following international legal actions. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britain's ban on homosexuals in the armed forces violates the right to privacy, contravening Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic during a NATO bombing campaign to force Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo. Milosevic remains in place in Belgrade, but Austrian police, bearing a secret indictment from the International Criminal Tribunal, arrested a Bosnian Serb general who was attending a conference in Vienna. In economic affairs the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body found in favor of the United States and against the European Union (EU) regarding European discrimination against certain Latin American banana exporters. A U.S. district court upheld the constitutionality of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) against claims that its dispute-resolution provisions violated U. S. sovereignty. In a notable environmental judgment, the new Law of the Sea Tribunal ordered the Japanese to cease all fishing for southern bluefin tuna for the rest of the year.
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